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Oysters Quotes

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Oysters Quotes

“The restaurant owner brought them wine, pale and golden and cool. There were just four oysters each, and when they were all gone they turned their attention to the cecinella. After the soft shapeless texture of the oysters these were almost the opposite: hard, crunchy skeletons whose flavor was all on the outside, a crisp bite of garlic and peperone that dissolved to nothing in your mouth. The ricci, or sea urchins, were another taste again, salty and exotic and rich. It was hard to believe that he had once thought they could be an austerity measure. After that they were brought without being asked a dish of baby octopus, cooked with tomatoes and wine mixed with the rich, gamey ink of a squid. For dessert the owner brought them two peaches. Their skins were wrinkled and almost bruised, but the flesh, when James cut into it with his knife, was unspoiled and perfectly ripe, so dark it was almost black. He was about to put a slice into his mouth when Livia stopped him. "Not like that. This is how we eat peaches here." She cut a chunk from the peach into her wine, then held the glass to his lips. He took it, tipping the wine and fruit together into his mouth. It was a delicious, sensual cascade of sensations, the sweet wine and the sweet peach rolling around his mouth before finally, he had to bite it, releasing the fruit's sugary juices. It was like the oyster all over again, a completely undreamt-of experience, and one that he found stirringly sexual, in some strange way that he couldn't have defined.”

SensationsSeafoodOystersPeachesFood And WineItalian CuisineFood CombiningFoodgasm
Book:The Wedding Officer
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“Bagna càuda with a plentiful variety of steamed winter vegetables and a rich anchovy sauce, thinly cut slices of warmed salt pork, a tofu and leek gratin, rice cooked in an earthenware pot with vegetables and chopped oysters, and miso soup--- the dishes had a vitality to them which came from using only the freshest ingredients, and though the seasoning was unobtrusive, all the flavors had pleasing depth. Weren't oysters supposed to be good for fertility? Rika thought as she brought to her lips a mouthful of rice enriched with soy sauce, whose smell put her in mind of the sea, shooting a glance over at her friend. She realized that she had more of an appetite than she could remember having in a long time, and that if this was largely owing to how delicious the food was, it was also in part to do with the way Ryōsuke ate, as if in a state of ecstasy.”

AppetiteOystersFeastEuropean Food
Book:Butter
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“CHRISTMAS EVE MENU Foie gras with Caramelized Apples Salmon with lemon, Cucumber, and Dill, served on Small Rounds of Toasted Bread Escargots de Bourgogne Oysters Three Ways Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce Oysters with Pimento Peppers and Apple Cider Vinegar Oysters Rockefeller, deglazed with Pernod, served with Spinach, Pimento Pepper, and Lardons Sophie's Spiced Langoustes (Spiny Lobster) à l'Armoricaine AND Crayfish and Shrimp with a Saffron-infused Aioli Dipping Sauce AND Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo”

SeafoodOystersChristmas EveMenuFrench Food
Book:Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars
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“CHRISTMAS EVE MENU Foie Gras with Caramelized Apples Salmon with Lemon, Cucumber, and Dill, served on Small Rounds of Toasted Bread Escargots de Bourgogne Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce Oysters with Pimento Peppers and Apple Cider Vinegar Oysters Rockefeller, deglazed with Pernod, served with Spinach, Pimento Peppers, and Lardons Sophie's Spiced Langouste (Spiny Lobster) à l'Armoricaine Crayfish, Crab, and Shrimp with a Saffron-Infused Aioli Dipping Sauce Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo Selection of the Château's Cheeses Three Varieties of Bûche de Noël The kitchen staff walked in as I threw the chalk on the counter. Phillipa snuck up behind me. "Oh my God. That menu looks wicked incredible. I'm already drooling." Clothilde nodded her head in approval. "It's perfect. You've made your grandmother proud." "How many bûches do you think we'll need?" asked Gustave, referring to the celebrated and traditional log cakes served in every French restaurant and household sometime during the holiday season. "Twenty?" I answered. "Good thing I started on them a few days ago," he said. "Pineapple and mango, chocolate and praline, and vanilla and chestnut." "No alcohol?" I asked. "Maybe just a pinch of Armagnac." He held up his forefinger and thumb. Looked like more than a pinch.”

ChristmasSeafoodOystersMenuFrench FoodCakesCrustacean
Book:The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux
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“The oysters arrived on a deep bed of ice. She had never eaten an oyster, and she stared down at the platter. A ruffle of black encircled each opalescent heart; she thought of orchids. Triangles of lemon sat on the ice, and she picked one up and squeezed it, inhaling the prickly aroma. Then she reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. The oyster was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. She closed her eyes to savor the experience, make it last.”

FlavorsOystersSavory
Book:The Paris Novel
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“Whatever you may know, you you cannot be truly efficient ministers if you are not "apt to teach." You know ministers who have mistaken their calling, and evidently have no gifts for it: make sure that none think the same of you. There are brethren in the ministry whose speech is intolerable; either they rouse you to wrath, or else they send you to sleep. No chloral can ever equal some discourses in sleep-giving properties; no human being, unless gifted with infinite patience, could long endure to listen to them, and nature does well to give the victim deliverance through sleep. I heard one say the other day that a certain preacher had no more gifts for the ministry than an oyster, and in my own judgment this was a slander on the oyster, for that worthy bivalve shows great discretion in his openings, and knows when to close. If some men were sentenced to hear their own sermons, it would be a righteous judgement upon them, and they would soon cry out with Cain, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Let us not fall under the same condemnation.”

MinistersPreachingOystersThe BiblePastorsPreachers
Author:Charles H. Spurgeon
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“It was salty, it was sweet, it was fishy, it was liquor, it was like a deep breath of seaweedy air and a mouthful of sea spray all at once. He bit once, involuntarily, and felt the flavors in his mouth swell and burst like a wave. Before he knew what he had done he had swallowed, and then there was another sensation; another flavor, as the soft shapeless mass wriggled past the back of his throat, leaving a faint, cool aftertaste of brine. He felt a sudden sense that nothing would be the same again. Eve in her garden had bitten an apple. James had eaten an oyster, sitting outside a tiny restaurant overlooking the sea by Sorrento. His undernourished heart swelled in the Italian sunshine like a ripening fig and he laughed out loud. With a great flood of gratitude he realized that he was having the time of his life.”

SeafoodOystersItalian CuisineIn The Moment
Book:The Wedding Officer
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“Though [New Yorkers] live by the sea, they take vacations to go somewhere else to be by the sea. Of the many odd things about New Yorkers, there is this: How is it that people living in the world’s greatest port, a city with no neighborhood that is far from a waterfront, a city whose location was chosen because of the sea, where the great cargo ships and tankers, mighty little tugs, yachts, and harbor patrol boats glide by, has lost all connection with the sea, almost forgotten that the sea is there?”

New YorkEcologyAlienationOystersThe SeaMaritime HistoryNew York History
Book:The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
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“The fish vendor had delivered a sea of heavenly delights. Les gambas, large shrimp, were the size of my hand. Once cooked, they'd be lovely and pink. The oysters were enormous and beautiful, the briny scent conjuring up the sea. I couldn't remember the last time I'd swum in open water. Six years ago on a Sunday trip to the Hamptons with Eric? Oh God, I didn't want to think about him. Besides the work of shucking more than three hundred of them, oysters were easy. They'd be served raw with a mignonette sauce and lemons, along with crayfish, crab, and shrimp, accompanied by a saffron-infused aioli dipping sauce. I lifted the top of another crate, and fifty or so lobsters with spiny backs greeted me- beautiful and big, and the top portion freckled by the sea. I loved working with lobster, the way their color changed from mottled brown and orange to a fiery red when cooked. I'd use the tails for le plat principal, flambéed in cognac and simmered in a spicy tomato- my version of my grandmother's recipe for langouste à la armoricaine. The garnish? A sprig of fresh rosemary. The other crates were filled with lovely mussels, scallops, whelks, and smoked salmon filets, along with another surprise- escargots. Save for the snails, this meal would be a true seafood extravaganza.”

Food For ThoughtSeafoodOystersLobsterShrimpCrustacean
Book:The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux
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“There is a species of taverns of a lower denomination, which, however, are sometimes resorted to by good company, when disposed to enjoy a frolic. These are the oyster-cellars, a sort of ale-houses, where the proper entertainment of the house is oysters, punch and porter. Most of the oyster-houses have a sort of long room, where a small party may enjoy the exercise of a country dance, to the music of a fiddle, harp, or bag-pipe. But the equivocal character of these houses of resort prevents them from being visited by any of the fair sex who seek the praise of delicacy, or pique themselves on propriety of conduct.”

OystersProprietyEdinburgh
Book:The History of Edinburgh
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“Oysters release their eggs from around August to September. So during this time, they are small and don't taste good. They gradually start to put on weight again after that. And when the snow on the mountains melt and the water flows into the sea from the river, the oysters taste even better. Snow melt is rich in nutrients, and the plankton grows on that. The oysters eat the plankton and grow larger.”

SpringSnowOystersMeltCycle Of Nature
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“First I shell the oysters, then coat them with flour... ... and I deep-fry that. I make a sauce with soy sauce, ground sesame, sesame oil, chili pepper and some mirin. And I dip the oysters in the sauce. Here you are. Give it a try. Deep fried oysters and kimchi over rice!" "Ah, this smells great! " "Let's eat!" "Ooh! The oysters have been fried perfectly! They're soft and when you bite into them, the juice comes spurting out... ... and the flavor of the oyster combined with the sourness and spiciness of the kimchi creates a wonderfully complex taste!" "Yeah! The deep-fried oysters go great with the kimchi!" "It would have been a bit heavy with just the fried oysters... ... but the hot and sour flavor of the kimchi makes this very tasty!”

OystersJapanese CookingFood CombiningDeep FriedKimchi
Book:Izakaya: Pub Food
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“Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.”

FeelingsMovingWaterBornMy OwnForeverMinesFinePleaseShapesStonesEaseNativeTendernessShellsSensibilityTossOysters
Book:The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems ; Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence
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“In such a world as ours the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worms' banquet.”

MenWorldHumansCountryWealthGrowingExampleBedGravesIdleWormsIdlenessHeirsOystersBanquetsHeiressSucculentsSlothfulness
Book:A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary
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“The world is your oyster when you are successful. That was when I was getting scripts. I was planning for this. I like this business. Parts of it I love, and I didn't want it to just end. The further you get away from your success, the less your phone rings. The next thing you know, it's 20 years later and you're in a mall going, "Remember when Al and I used to do something like this.”

KnowsWorldWantYearsEndsRememberUsedNextSuccessfulScriptsPhonesRingsPlanningGet AwayAlsRemember WhenMallsOysters
Author:Tim Allen
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“We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep, we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and springs of wildflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak. But we hear.”

DoeGirlSpeakAirFlowerSpringBirdRoseWaveFlamesEggsCowsSheepButterflyElephantsPearlsRabbitsWhalesLiliesIvyOystersPeachesCaterpillarsWildflowersGazelles
Author:Susan Griffin
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“We are bound to our bodies like an oyster to its shell.”

BodyBoundsShellsOysters
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
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“Now I'm beginning to live a little and feel less like a sick oyster at low tide.”

FeelsLittlesLowsSickTidesOysters
Book:Louisa May Alcott Premium Edition - 16 Novels in One Volume: Little Women Trilogy & Other Novels (Illustrated): Moods, The Mysterious Key and What It Opened, An Old Fashioned Girl, Work, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Under the Lilacs, Jack and Jill, Behind a Mask, The Abbot's Ghost, A Modern Mephistopheles…
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“In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece.”

WorldLongLightMightThreeLossWrittenFoodAreasEarsCookingGenerousIslandsPairsCulinaryAppetiteDozenDucksBowlsMasterpieceCornStimulusSteakOystersCrabsLobsterProustLong IslandClamsScallops
Author:A. J. Liebling
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